Do You Speak American?
Looking at the pages that are linked from this blog, I noticed that this page was absent, which is a shame because this is such a fun site. A few years ago PBS produced a documentary called “Do You Speak American?” focusing on the various dialects of English spoken in the United States. Since both our books are coming from a British perspective, I have a hard time conceptualizing some of the dialects discussed since I’ve never heard them. I thought it might be useful to have a page to look at that only focuses on the dialects that we all might be more familiar with.
There are several different sections of the site, but the section called “From Sea to Shining Sea” might be a good place to start since it talks at length about more than a dozen different American English dialects. There are also sections that talk about language change and the infamous question of whether English is getting better or worse. If anyone is planning to study a dialect of American English for their project, there are also several “further reading” links that might be helpful too (and probably screened for the sites that are actually legitimate).
All right, I hope everyone has a great weekend!
K_eng wrote:
This is a really interesting site. Thanks for posting it! Even though my project really doesn’t have anything to do with American English dialects, it’s certainly a topic that’s highly relevant. I found the section talking about language change intriguing. The site talked about how while “upper-class English” was once held as the standard that people modeled their speech after, it is not so much the case anymore. This is not because “upper-class English” is any less correct, but rather the social group where most leaders come from is, in fact, the middle class. Thus their “dialect” is reflected in the popular language usage. This is definitely something I never thought about before but it certainly makes sense considering the ratio of members belonging to either of those classes in American society.
Posted 07 Apr 2008 at 8:36 pm ¶
sean wrote:
Libbey,
A great find. I’ve added it to the links on the side of the page under “Dialects.”
It’s true this class has been deficient on American English (and world English). Both of these could merit a class of their own (which is how I’m rationalizing the class’s Anglo-centrism this week. Check back for a new rationalization later).
Posted 08 Apr 2008 at 1:54 pm ¶
Ye Olde Steve wrote:
Speaking of American English vs. British English, and perhaps this merits its own blog post, but I’ve been wondering lately what the fate of the two will be. My main question is whether or not the two will approach each other in intelligibility or diverge. For example, in America we have a large influx of mainly Spanish speaking immigrants, combined with a (somewhat) raised awareness of eubonics as well, two forces which, if left to themselves, would probably change our American English significantly, whereas British English would be largely influenced by Northern African and Indian immigrants speaking English. On the other side we have CNN, BBC, and the American Media machine all working to bring the language together. So which is stronger?
Posted 09 Apr 2008 at 3:15 pm ¶
amelia wrote:
Hello! So in the interest of keeping the interesting accents coming, I thought I should share a youtube video recently pointed out to me (since I’m from Kentucky). If you search for the “turtle man” on youtube, you’ll find a prime example of a guy with a rural Kentucky accent, who happens to pull snapping turtles out of ponds.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 11:19 pm ¶
kelly wrote:
That is a seriously fantastic video, although I really don’t want to know what some of that stuff is he’s swimming through. The thing that’s cracking me up especially about it is that I’ve got relatives who sound pretty much just like the Turtleman — they’re from central North Carolina.
Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 11:37 pm ¶